TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -Javier Arenas isn’t worried that No. 2 Alabama will try to sleepwalk through Saturday’s Chattanooga game.
The Crimson Tide cornerback doesn’t think he and his fellow seniors will allow it. Not in their home finale. Not even with arch rival Auburn and No. 1 Florida waiting, followed perhaps by the BCS national championship game.
“We take a lot of pride in letting this be a game to remember,” Arenas said. “That’s a very, very high benefit for us, the seniors that we have. If we didn’t have seniors that cared, we’d go through this game nonchalant. Just sail through it. But it’s not like that. We’ve got guys who want this last game to be one to remember.
“We won’t falter in any way.”
a’s national title hopes. A loss? Now, that would be memorable.
“Every game has significance,” Tide coach Nick Saban said. “There won’t be one thing that anybody ever remembers about this season if we didn’t have success against a team like this.”
Still, the game with the Football Championship Subdivision’s Mocs (6-4) seems like such a mismatch that the big question facing Saban and Alabama (10-0) might be: Do you let tailback Mark Ingram try to rack up big numbers to impress Heisman Trophy voters or rest him for the two bigger games?
The coach said that’s not an issue for either him or Ingram.
“We don’t really worry about stats,” Saban said. “We’re going to make all the decisions based on winning and what’s best for our team. The most important thing for me is that our team has success and that he does all the things he needs to do to help our team be successful.
“I think he understands if he does that, he’s going to enhance his chance for having success better than anything else.”
Besides, he’s just a sophomore. This game is more about the 26 seniors in their finale at Bryant-Denny Stadium, including 10 starters. They’re trying to complete a second-straight perfect regular season. That came after the Tide lost 13 games in the first two seasons for the fourth-year seniors.
appier with where we’re leaving this program and where this team stands.”
Arenas’ ambition for the game: “Of course, the win. But I wouldn’t mind scoring a touchdown or two.”
That might be a worthy goal for the Mocs, too. They are going against the No. 2 scoring and rushing defense in the Football Bowl Subdivision, a group that is allowing just 10.9 points and 72.8 rushing yards a game.
Alabama has shut out Chattanooga in five of the previous 10 meetings. All were Tide victories but the teams haven’t met since 1994.
Chattanooga is led by quarterback B.J. Coleman, a sophomore who transferred from Tide rival Tennessee. Coleman has 17 touchdown passes and his 220 completions are two shy of the school single-season record.
“This is a very well-coached team,” Saban said. “We always have the proper respect and we need to do a good job in what we do to execute and take care of our own business.”
The Mocs have already had the biggest turnaround in program history under first-year coach Russ Huesman, who has directed them to six wins after the team went 1-11 in 2008.
Huesman calls Alabama “probably the best team in the country.”
He cites the exposure the game brings his program, even down to mentions on TV of Chattanooga as the team that Alabama plays before Auburn and Florida.
“Hopefully we’ll do OK and people will say, ‘That’s a feisty bunch and I like the way they play football no matter what the final score is,”’ Huesman said.
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